What Do We Do With A Drunken Sailor?
by IWillBeThereWhereYouAre
Summary: Tom has something much scarier to face than drug busts or teenage criminals--the high school play. Set during the middle of season three, before Loc'd Out.


I own nothing related to 21 Jump Street. The title comes from an old pirate song.

"This is ridiculous." Hanson said, shaking his head as he looked his costume up and down. He had been a cop for nearly three years now, and this was what all this came down to. A pirate outfit. "These people are in high school. What business do they have running around in pirate costumes?"

"Relax, man. At least you don't have to be an ale wench." Booker replied, trying to contain himself.

"This isn't funny." Hanson retorted, lifting the silky collar of his white shirt. "I have to go in front of the entire school," he said, swallowing hard, "dressed like a pirate." At this, the small crowd of officers began laughing.

"I told you not to push it with Mr. Cory, but no…" Penhall said, in an almost condescending tone.

"I was trying to keep my cover. How was I supposed to know he was going to sign me up as the lead in the play?" Hanson said, trying to regain his dignity. But dignity was nowhere to be found as he played with the velvet vest. He turned and saw his captain, Adam Fuller, walking through the chapel door. He ran up to him, looking for an excuse.

"Captain. I need to talk to you."

"About what?" Fuller said, sounding testy. He continued walking into his office, and Penhall, Booker, and Hanson reluctantly followed.

"I got signed up for the play." Hanson said angrily.

"I know." Fuller replied, setting his briefcase down. "I read it in your paperwork. What do you want me to do about it, run lines with you?"

"I need you to get me out of it." Hanson said, quickly running through his registry for a good excuse. Then he found one. "It could blow my cover."

"Come again?" Fuller asked for clarification, sitting down.

"If I'm in this play listed as Tom Harp, then I transfer to a new case down in Westmont as Tom Hindley, some kid's are gonna recognize it." A sly smile spread across Fuller's face as Hanson talked rapidly. "What?" He said with a breathy sigh.

"You don't want to wear the pirate costume." Fuller said, all too knowingly. Hanson immediately shot a glance at Penhall, who was cowering in the corner.

"You told him?" He shrieked, talking two steps towards Doug. Penhall could not contain himself in laughter, and further angered Hanson.

"It may have come up…" Penhall eluded, but burst into laughter. "I couldn't help it." He replied, giving a wide (yet remorseful) grin.

"Great." Hanson said sarcastically. "Coach, you gotta get me out of this."

"No way, Hanson." Fuller replied. "You still gotta find that coke dealer, and your main suspect is in the drama club."

"So put Penhall in the club. I'm sure he'd love to wear puffy shirts and swashbuckle."

"No sir. You did always seemed like a scallywag to me." Penhall joked, but Hanson did not reply with a smile. He shot Doug a death glare, and his smile was quickly erased.

"No way, Hanson. Just suck it up and last a few more days." Fuller said unapologetically. "Besides, if you drop out, how else will you get your Oscar?"

"Very funny Coach." Hanson said, accepting his defeat. He stormed out of the office, and was trailed by Booker and Penhall once more. "What am I going to do about this?" He asked, turning to his best friend Doug. Doug shrugged and shot him a glance that said that he had no idea. He would've turned to Booker, but would find no solace there. Only sarcastic comments. "I gotta get out of this."

"Why? It could be fun!" Booker said, still smiling smugly.

"Fine, you think its fun, you do it."

"No can do, man. You do the crime, you do the time." Booker said, walking away.

"Thank you for your sage advice, Dennis!" Tom yelled as Booker inched near his desk. He let a sigh of annoyance ripple through him, and looked at it once more. "There's no way I'm doing this."

"Big night, kid. You getting stage fright?" Doug yelled from the bottom of the pole. Tom had been up there for nearly fourty minutes. He had to be in the school by 6, and it was 5:45 right now. What was the hold up? "Come on, Hanson. Its not _that_ bad." He called, trying to coax Hanson to come down. He was unsuccessful.

"I'm not coming down!" He said in a hangdog tone. A few creeking footsteps could be heard from the locker area, and Doug deducted that Tom was pacing nervously.

"Hanson, you can't back out of this!"

"Then why do they have understudies?"

"You gotta do it!"

"No I don't!" Hanson yelled back, and slammed the door to his locker shut in retallation. He huffed, and he puffed, but eventually the idea sank in.

"I promise we won't laugh!" Penhall screeched, not realizing the error in his sentence.

"_WE?!_" Tom yelled like a banshee. Penhall buried his head in his hands, realizing what was wrong. "You said it was only you down there!"

"It is!" Penhall tried to recover, but got backward glances from Booker, Ioki, Hoffs, and Blowfish. "I meant me and… Just, forget it. Come on, we gotta get you to school."

"Fine!" Tom yelled, taking one step. He was still out of Penhall's line of vision, so it was safe for him to stop. "You promise you're not gonna laugh?" He asked cautiously, waiting for assurance he wasn't going to be utterly embarrassed.

"Cross my heart, hope to die." He said with a slight chuckle.

"Because if you do laugh, I will be more than happy to oblige, Douglas." He said bitterly. Penhall agreed, and Tom finished off his stairway entrance. Promises be damned, the officers had no choice but to laugh. Over top his silky white button-up shirt, there was a maroon velvet vest. A plastic sword stowed away safely in its holster, Tom took a step towards the group of officers. His boots clicked as he meandered closer. This was humiliating, he thought to himself. His shaggy brown hair was folding over the red bandana. It was bad enough having to wear the patch. Now everyone was laughing at him. "You promised." He said angrily, as he noted everyone's less than enthusiastic reaction to him.

"I'm sorry." Penhall said, unable to contain his giddiness. "We'll stop." He said, trying to abruptly end his laughter. But after a few seconds of stifling, he found it to no avail. He let out another guffaw, and saw that Tom was giving him an evil death stare.

"You promised." He said angrily walking towards the door.

"I'm sorry, matey!" Penhall replied with a stupid joke, grabbing Hanson to stop him from storming off. "Seriously, man. Break a peg leg." He chuckled, then let Tom go.

"I'll never forget this, Penhall!." He said as he left the room. He huffily piled into his blue mustang, and drove towards the school. He took one look at his costume, sighed heavily, and turned the key in the ignition. 25 years old, and he was going to be in a high school play. Dressed up as a pirate.

"That was possibly the most embarrassing night of my life." Hanson said, walking fervently out of the building. Penhall struggled to keep up with him.

"It wasn't that bad…" He said, obviously lying through his teeth. The fact was, the play was a disaster. But he had to make Tom feel better. So he lied. Terribly.

"Doug, the captain of the ship was coked out and started singing 'Danger Zone' halfway through the first act." Hanson replied, taking another step on the blacktop. Doug followed him, thinking rapidly on how to make Tom feel better.

"The scenery was great." Doug said, ignoring the bad part of the play, and trying to find the silver lining.

"Oh, you mean the huge pile of puke where the three sailors rid themselves of three bottles of Jack Daniels?"

"You were great." Doug said sincerely. "When you remembered your lines." He said softly, and was met by another death glare. Tom just sighed exasperatingly, and took the bandana off his head. His brown hair fell in his face, and he pushed it away from his eyes.

"I just want to go home." He said tiredly. "I'm pooped." He continued walking towards his car, parked so carefully in the only open spot. "I'm just glad you were the only one who witnessed that nightmare." At this, Doug had a smirk on his face, one that was noted by Hanson. "What are you smirking at?"

"Nothing…" Doug said, trying to feign innocence. He failed miserably.

"Doug…." Tom retorted, sounding like he was Doug's mother or something. He stared down his partner, looking for clues to his smugness. Nothing. "It was just you that came, right?"

"What do you mean?" Doug sought clarification. Or a means of proving his innocence.

"You said Ioki was sick, Hoffs was stuck in paper work, Fuller was visiting his son, and Blowfish was with his grandmother at the hospital. Meaning that you were the only one who saw this play. Right?" He asked, fearing for his personal well being. His sanity, his reputation.

His dignity.

But Doug Penhall was a terrible actor. He tried nodding. But then he got nervous. He began sweating, twitching, all of that. He was terrified of being caught. "I swear on the entire '88 LA Kings season that me, you, and God were the only ones who saw that play." Fortunately, Tom bought it hook, line and sinker. He nodded agreeingly, then drove Doug home. When he finally reached his own apartment, he snuggled into his bed, thinking the nightmare was finally over.

When Tom walked into the chapel the next morning, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was… off. Whenever he looked over at Booker, who never seemed to be excited early in the morning, he was grinning like a moron. He tried going over to talk to him, but he always seemed busy snickering in the corner with Doug. Odd, Tom thought to himself. He had never really seen those two engage in an actual conversation. The last one he had seen was when Booker had hired that stripper to cheer up Blowfish. The memory lingered for a few minutes, but it faded as he buried himself in paperwork.

"Hanson!" Fuller barked from his office to get the young officer's attention. He reluctantly got up, and trudged into the office. "You too, Booker!" He yelled, and noticed that Booker was starting to have faster reactions to these commands. As soon as the two were in the office, Fuller pulled the door behind him.

"I just wanted to…" Fuller began, but noticed some sort of awkward tension between Hanson and Booker. Tension between the two of them was not unusual. It was not a secret that Tom couldn't stand Booker, and vice versa. But this was different. Booker couldn't even look at Hanson without grinning. Something was going on. And Fuller was about to find out what. "Is there something going on between you two?" Hanson had been thinking the same thing, watching Dennis contain his own laughter.

"No way, coach." Hanson said with a chuckle, trying to relieve the tension. He waited for a similar response from Dennis. He was shocked at what he actually found.

"I'm sorry, Captain. It's just that… all my life I've been sailing these open seas…" Booker said, his voice softly growing with laughter. Tom's ears perked up, because he recognized those words. He had said those words last night.

Doug was a liar.

"I'm a scallywag, a pirate. I do pirate things, and I'm not the kind of guy you should be hangin' round with." He continued his monologue wholeheartedly, and Tom wanted to fall through the floorboards.

"You were there?" Hanson said behind his teeth. A kind of ugly facial expression for him, and so he flushed with anger.

"Front row center." Booker replied proudly. "I'm surprised you didn't see me."

"I was a little busy." Hanson said impatiently.

"Yeah, busy forgetting your lines." Booker said under his breath, receiving a few evil eyes from Hanson. "What?" Booker shrieked as Hanson slapped him across the arm.

"Guys?!" Asked Fuller, watching the two officers playing sheepishly like children.

"What?" Hanson and Booker said simultaneously, turning in synch to see Fuller's scowl.

"Can you please leave the bickering for outside of the office?" He said paternally, and the two lowered their heads in reverence.

"Yeah." Booker said.

"Okay." Hanson said under his breath.

"Now shake hands and say you're sorry." Fuller continued his tirade, a slight sense of joking in his voice.

"Sorry." Booker followed orders, sounding only a little bit sorry.

"You better be sorry." Hanson said, and with a crooked smile, continued, "Otherwise I'd make you walk the plank."

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